New York Man Who Faked Suicide May Be Gone Again

July 28, 1987|By Shanna Flowers of The Sentinel Staff

KISSIMMEE — A New York man who staged a drowning suicide eight years ago and was recently found in Osceola County probably was trying to avoid paying alimony and child support, an investigator said Monday.

Michael Feliciano, who was known in Osceola County as Michael Pierce, was paying alimony and child support to a former wife, said a New York State Police investigator, who refused to give his name.

''It's an educated guess,'' the investigator said. ''He had a former wife. He was married again. He just wanted to get away from it all.''

He may have gotten away again.

Kissimmee police, who helped find Feliciano five weeks ago, now don't know where he is.

Despite the New York police theory about child support, officials of the Westchester County, N.Y., support services office said Monday they have no record of Feliciano either paying support or being behind in payments.

Officials of the Westchester County district attorney's office said they probably would decide this week whether to bring charges against Feliciano, formerly of Yorktown Heights.

However, no one knows exactly what to charge him with.

''Even if you stretched it to falsely reporting an accident, he didn't do anything,'' the investigator said.

On April 25, 1979, state police answered a call that a man had stopped his car on the Tappan Zee Bridge at White Plains and appeared to be preparing to jump.

Police went to the bridge, where they found the car and spotted a man's jacket floating in the river below. His wallet was in the car, along with a note that read: ''Please call my mother-in-law. I jumped.''

New York police periodically checked motor vehicle records, and five weeks ago they discovered that a Michael Pierce of Kissimmee had the same Social Security number as Feliciano.

New York police contacted the Kissimmee Police Department for help in locating Pierce. Kissimmee Detective Jim Lakey said he found Feliciano at a mobile home on South Airport Road five weeks ago.

His neighbors had said earlier this week that the man they knew as Pierce had lived in the mobile home park for about five years until he moved last year.

However, Lakey said Feliciano, now 37, was living at the mobile home last month with a woman and a child. Lakey said Feliciano told him he was working at an appliance repair store but there was no answer Sunday and Monday at the shop where he said he worked.

Lakey said Feliciano admitted to him that he had faked his suicide ''to get out of town.''